When you have a very important message to relay, and all you get are answering machines, no matter what number you try or when you try them. I've been trying for the last 20 minutes to cancel a subbing job because of a migraine, but no one will answer the call, while the migraine grows worse. (I have atypical migraines - I don't get the pain or the light sensitivity, but I lose my ability to speak without stuttering violently or to move my legs. So right now I am stuttering hard and can't move my legs at all - I can barely feel them, but I'm still signed up to get in my car and drive over to a school that is full of stairs and chase kindergarteners).

My mother took a few Italian courses and on more than one occasion when we'd go to Olive Garden, I'd say "Oh I think I'll try some of the ____" and she'd tell me the proper pronunciation of the dish. When the waiter came around I'd ask for it as my mother pronounced it and the waiter would look at me perplexed. I'd pronounce the dish as I originally thought it was pronounced and then they'd get it.

Truly, while knowing the proper pronunciation would help at a restaurant in Italy, I really don't expect a server at Olive Garden to know how it's pronounced unless they too have taken Italian. While they say the chefs are sent to workshops to learn how to cook new dishes, I can't imagine they'd send all their servers.

Mike Birbiglia has a funny bit about how his dad goes to Olive Garden and tries to order with the "authentic" pronunciations, like "pasta fa-joo-lay". "We're in a strip mall between a Spencer Gifts and a Build-a-bear. You'll have the pasta faggy-ohlee like everyone else."

I have this gray sweater dress that I spent $50 on. It fit me nicely in the store, hugged my curves in a flattering manner, and was generally pretty nice. I lose ten pounds and BAM!

It hangs like a sack. The part that used to sit at my waist now flares out awkwardly at my hips, since I don't have the love handles to support it anymore. I can't belt it, because when I do that the stupid thing enunciates the little bit of fat I still have around my hips and bunches up around the belt and looks weird.

Sweaters can be tricky sometimes, depending on how they are constructed, but maybe a local professional seamstress/alterations place can take it in for you? It might cost $10-20 bucks which isnít awesome, but in the long run if the sweater dress is good quality, youíll get more wear our of it.

On topic:I make quilts, bags and other crafts, and occasionally dresses for me. Yes, I have a nice sewing machine. No, I do not do alterations. Not even on my own clothing most of the time (she says while wearing too-long jeans she bought 3 weeks ago).

Please stop asking me to alter your clothes, fix things that rip, and finish your projects, (not legally) MIL. You have your own sewing machine and have had lessons. You can do it for yourself.

I am the unwilling tech support for MIL, who is less than nice to me. Biggest problem, I don't have time to drive to her house all the time, especially for a one-day offer she wants to buy. Another issue, she just got her first email account and can't remember the email address or the password.

My mother took a few Italian courses and on more than one occasion when we'd go to Olive Garden, I'd say "Oh I think I'll try some of the ____" and she'd tell me the proper pronunciation of the dish. When the waiter came around I'd ask for it as my mother pronounced it and the waiter would look at me perplexed. I'd pronounce the dish as I originally thought it was pronounced and then they'd get it.

Truly, while knowing the proper pronunciation would help at a restaurant in Italy, I really don't expect a server at Olive Garden to know how it's pronounced unless they too have taken Italian. While they say the chefs are sent to workshops to learn how to cook new dishes, I can't imagine they'd send all their servers.

My dad is a cheese snob. He takes me to task for saying, "Gooo-dah" (Gouda) in the store instead of "Hough-dah." (With the H in the back of the throat.) "Snowflake, if you don't learn to pronounce these things, no one will know what you mean!" It's fun to watch him ask for "Hough-dah" over and over again in the store with the clerk looking at him perplexed. I'm not talking about a nice European import store either. This happened at the Deli in our local Albertsons.

If I may ask, why do you help her? I don't get along with my MIL very well, and if she kept asking me for favours, I would mysteriously always be busy on the day she called.

This is a bit of a hot button for me, because my husband is the unwilling tech support for his mother. The thing that drives me most up the wall is that she's always so darned ungracious. The words "please" and "thank you" rarely pass her lips. Whenever she needs more business cards, she phones our house and says "I need more business cards by Tuesday." (No offer to pay for card stock or ink cartridges, either.) I always urge my husband to say pleasantly "I'm sure there's a Kinko's close to you that will be more than happy to help", but he's too nice.

The way kickstarter is set up, there's just no easy way to navigate it, it drives me bonker. You'd think having a search function for all current/finished projects, by categories, or dates, or goal...(Messy description ahead, if you don't know the website don't bother it will just sound brain hurty)If I click once on the 'design' category I don't want to 1) see the staff pick for design, then 2) click on the 'see all XX design project', 3) get on a page where I have 'staff pick'/'popular this week'/'recently successfull'/..., 4) click on the tiny 'see more popular projects' under the 6 ones depicted and then 5) having no way to sort them through in an intelligent manner (they are not sorted by anything).That's too many steps, and the freaking 'ninja video mode' when you scroll to high is rhaaaa.Sorry, I just had to vent.

No, it doesn't. 5lbs of muscle and 5lbs of fat is still 5lbs. One could say fat has more volume or muscle is more dense...or even, when comparing an identical volume of muscle and fat, muscle weighs more.

I hope I'm not the only one that is peeved by this.

I figure that's as reasonable as "bricks weigh more than popcorn": that it's the same volume of muscle and fat is implicit. If "muscle weighs more than fat" bothered me, I think I'd also be unhappy with "fat has more volume," which relies on an implicit "than the same mass of muscle."

Logged

Any advice that requires the use of a time machine may safely be ignored.

If I may ask, why do you help her? I don't get along with my MIL very well, and if she kept asking me for favours, I would mysteriously always be busy on the day she called.

This is a bit of a hot button for me, because my husband is the unwilling tech support for his mother. The thing that drives me most up the wall is that she's always so darned ungracious. The words "please" and "thank you" rarely pass her lips. Whenever she needs more business cards, she phones our house and says "I need more business cards by Tuesday." (No offer to pay for card stock or ink cartridges, either.) I always urge my husband to say pleasantly "I'm sure there's a Kinko's close to you that will be more than happy to help", but he's too nice.

Because DH is the only child living within 300 miles and he has decided not to cut off communication with her, as it would alienate his father (who is a lovely person), and I am too weak-spined to completely ignore MIL. She calls my cell, as we do not have a home phone.

*sigh* ...People who ask me to help them with their fanfics, get insulted when I try to point out their grammar/spelling errors, and end up not taking my advice because their way "sounds better" to them. Okay, fine. Don't ask me next time.

People, specifically my one cousin, Who ask the same things over and over. Such as why donít I take the train when I come visit her, rather than driving. Mind you, I have explained umpteen times that a. if I take the local train and then switch to Amtrak, I must also switch train stations. Itís also all commuter, permit parking at my local station so Iíd have to get a ride there and back.

And if I take Amtrak directly, I must drive an hour to the station, where there is limited parking. So if the station is an hour from me, the train 2 hours and 45 mins, and THEN I must take the Metro from DC out to MD, its pretty much the same as my 4.5 hour drive directly to her house.

I could give many examples, but this is just one of them that we go over time and time again.